Three Girls and a Baby

We have had several new additions to our family this past week. A couple of months ago I started the big purge of Ciara's bedroom. I set aside one day to do this, but it turned out to be an overwhelming job. So school started and we worked when we could, or fought about her working on it....you get the picture. Before we started I had bought her a baby alive doll that she has been wanting. I told her that she didn't get to open the box until the room was done. At first that motivated her, but as we got busy with school, it sat in the kitchen floor unnoticed. So I finally decided we needed to get it done. A friend was giving away kittens. I had promised Ciara a new kitten a long time ago. We were going to get kittens from my dad but their release date didn't jive with our visits. So I asked my friend for some kittens and told her I wanted to use them as an incentive for Ciara to finish her room. She was 90% done. I told her about it last Friday night. She said ok at first, but Saturday morning she said she didn't want them. When I asked why, she said she didn't want to clean her room. That is so typical for my daughter. So I told her the room would be cleaned that weekend, or she would be grounded from tv, computer, skating rink....for a year. I made her go in and work on it Sunday and I helped her some. She worked hard. We finished it Monday night. On Tuesday we picked up the kittens. The little gray one is named Smokey, and the little black one is named Buttercakes. They are really cute and have captivated all the hearts of our neighborhood children. (I lost my camera battery charger, so can't take pictures yet, but will post later.)

Now this is a little insert on how God can use two kittens to reach a person. Next door there are 4 kids, ages 10, 8, 5, 4. The 8 year old is a girl and the rest boys. They moved in this summer. The little boys adore Ciara and they have put the swimming pool ladder over our fence. That way, they just climb the ladder to go from yard to yard. So Wednesday when the kids were all over adoring the kittens, Ciara asked the little girl to go with her to the new AWANA program our church was starting. The little boys wanted to go also, so I called the church to ask what ages could go. They could. Then the bigger boy decided he would go. So I take the whole neighborhood to church and get them all signed up. The 5 year old is really shy and didn't want to stay, but the other's did. I heard a friend of the 5th grade boy ask him if he had ever gone to church before. He replied, "No". I hadn't even thought of that. We were just playing with kittens, but now he is hearing about how much God loves him. You know somewhere in the bible it says that even the rocks cry out the glory of the lord. Maybe that is what Meow means also...

OK, I digress.... back to the baby alive doll. Last night, Ciara realized her room was clean and she hadn't opened the doll. So I let her open it and we read the directions.... Two other little girls were visiting and helped her feed the doll. They were so cute begging for a turn to stick the spoon in the mouth and watch the baby chow down on the runny "pea" baby food. Now this particular baby came with a potty and you are supposed to potty train her. The more you feed her and set her on the potty the more she is programmed to actually potty in the potty. So all the sudden the doll says, "Mommy, I need to potty". The three little girls went crazy! They ran around the house screaming, "Hurry, hurry, where is the potty, she has to potty...". They were really in a tizzy over it. Too bad the actual "poop" was just runny green "pea" stuff. I think Ciara thought it would actually turn into a turd inside the baby. We loved playing with her. The girls didn't want to go home. They just wanted to watch that baby potty!!! I wouldn't be surprised if God could use a baby alive doll to reach people also!